Little Irish and August 2012 FMQ Challenge with Wendy Sheppard

Quilt #100

Little Irish

These are my samples for Wendy Sheppard's Challenge for August 2012 FMQ Challenge at Insights from SewCalGal.

Wendy's challenge was Jester's Hats which looked real simple at first glance but took some practise to “try to” master.

My first sample was the simple Jester's Hats:

Jester's Hats

And here is the cultured Jester's Hats:

Cultured Jester's Hats - front

Cultured Jester's Hats - back

Little Irish was made in miniature after making a bed size Double Irish Chain documented here .

Like a lot of other quilters, I found that filling the space evenly was not easy. I stitched the simpler version and I started in the centre and kept working around but I'm not sure that is the solution as I was getting a sort of echoing look in spots. I will try this pattern again in a larger size with more space between shapes.

detail - front

detail - back

No label but I stitched my name and date through all layers.

signature and date

The borders were all stitched together and then mitered at the corners.

borders and binding

I used a 12 wt Egyptian Cotton thread, Wonderfil Fruitti on the top and something lighter in the bobbin and a cotton batting. I find the look a little overpowering, a thread colour closer in value to the colour of the fabric may have worked better but all in all. am happy with the results.

The back is one of my own hand dyed Egyptian cotton.

Little Irish - back

Great tutorial, thank you, Wendy!

You can also check out my completed UFO, Out on a Limb using the June tutorial from Cindy Needham. 

DOCUMENTATION:

Quilt Name: Little Irish

Description: Small Table Topper

Pattern: Miniature Double Irish Chain

Size: 23¼” x 23¼”

Fabrics: 100% cotton

Predominant colours: red and blue

Construction Techniques: strip-pieced

Back: Hand dyed Egyptian cotton

Batting: cotton

Edge finish: Single fold binding

Quilting: Free motion quilted on Domestic Machine

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve: no

Label: signed

Date completed: 2012

Inspiration: quilting inspired by Wendy Sheppard

Maker: Terry Whyte

Out on a Limb

Quilt # 99

Out on a Limb

This is another UFO that has finally come off the shelf after probably close to 20 years of sitting there.

I try to finish a UFO using the technique learned in the Free Motion Quilting Challenge.  This was started in June using Cindy Needham's technique.  Running a little behind.  Click here for that post .

This pattern is from Elly Sienkiewicz's book Applique 12 Easy Ways and I made this quilt in order to learn hand applique which turned out not being my thing at all. A lot of it ended up being machine appliqued which was OK 'cause I needed to learn how to do that as well.

I thought that this quilt would work for Cindy Needham's technique of divide and conquer and since there were already a lot of curves I was inspired by Melanie Testa to go for squares (rather than Cindy's random shapes). Melanie Testa's book is titled “Inspired to Quilt”.

I outline quilted around all the appliqued designs and the border.
I measured and drew my squares in with a water soluble marker and stitched on the lines.

This is what the back looked like:

I sketched the designs on paper 

sketch

and started the stiching in the centre square and worked my way outwards.

The following are close-ups of the quilting designs in the four corners:

I programmed my machine with the quilt info and stitched it on the sleeve.  Here is part of it.

label on sleeve

And this is the back quilted, sleeve on and bound.

Out on a Limb - back

I'm really enjoying trying out all of these new techniques and designs and getting quite a few UFO completed while having fun doing it.  Thanks to SewCalGal for this challenge and Cindy Needham in particular for this one.

DOCUMENTATION:

Quilt Name: Out on a Limb

Description: Hearts, Leaves and Birds on branches

Pattern: from Elly Sienkiewicz's book Applique 12 Easy Ways

Size: 30½” x 31”

Fabrics: 100% cotton

Predominant colours: Red, blue and off white

Construction Techniques: Hand and machine appliqued

Back: 100% cotton

Batting: wool

Edge finish: Single fold ¼” binding

Quilting: Free motion quilted on Domestic Machine

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve: yes

Label: yes (on sleeve)

Date completed: 2012

Inspiration: Elly Sienkiewicz's book Applique 12 Easy Ways – quilting inspired by Cindy Needham and Melanie Testa

Quilt History: 20 years old unquilted UFO

Maker: Terry Whyte

Sparkling Rings

Sparkling Rings

Quilt # 98

This was an experiment in dyeing cotton batting which turned out really well and ended being used for the top of this quilt.

Sparkling Rings

After soaking the batting and some white cotton in soda ash, I layered the batting and cotton on a piece of plastic. Yellow, red and blue Procion MX Dyes that had been diluted in water was poured on the batting and left to mix and bleed together and give brilliant secondary colours.

The excess dye soaked through to the bottom cotton layer which I used for the back of the quilt.

I applied random pieces of white and black netting to the batting and covered the whole thing with organza.

The circles were stitched on and I then added wiggly lines where the circles overlapped.

detail of organza,  net, beads

And then the scary part, the organza was burned off using a heat gun and soldering iron, leaving it only at the stitching.

I thought it still needed a little bling, so added various shaped, mostly green, beads in a random path on the intersecting sections.

Hand made cotton beads, some wrapped with thread completed the embellishing.

hand made beads

I hand quilted around each circle and then, just for fun, wove some embroidery thread through the quilting stitches on the on some of the circles.

Sparkling Rings back

DOCUMENTATION:

Quilt Name: Sparkling Rings

Description: Embellished and stitched overlapping circles on dyed batting

Pattern: Original

Size: 17” x 19”

Fabrics: cotton batting, netting, organza, 100% cotton

Predominant colours: rainbow

Construction Techniques: free motion and embellishment

Back: 100% hand dyed cotton

Batting: cotton

Edge finish: Double fold french binding

Quilting: Free motion quilted on Domestic Machine

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve: yes

Label: yes

Date completed: 2009

Quilt History: Displayed at Kirkland Lake Mile of Gold Quilters Guild Quilt Show in May 2010 and the 3^rd Annual Englehart Art Juried Show, Sept, 2011.

Maker: Terry Whyte